Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Otus and Ephialtes, the Aloadae, were twin sons of Iphimedeia by Poseidon (or of Aloeus as foster-father). Homer says they grew nine cubits broad and nine fathoms tall by their ninth year. They bound Ares in a bronze jar for thirteen months until Hermes stole him out—an Iliadic digression on the war-god’s humiliation. In the *Odyssey* Odysseus sees their mother in the underworld; the twins had planned to stack Ossa on Olympus and Pelion on Ossa to reach heaven, and would have done it had they come to manhood; Apollo killed them first. Apollodorus adds that they wooed Hera and Artemis (or pursued Artemis), and that Artemis (or Apollo) destroyed them on Naxos: she ran between them as a deer; each cast a spear and they slew one another. Another strand has Dionysus or Apollo as the agent. Their crime is hubris of scale—giants who nearly scaled heaven and once jailed Ares—stopped before the Olympian order broke.